Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady (Part 15)
By Emily Ho
Editor’s Note: The author runs an ice-cream parlor on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island. When time allows, she draws caricatures and writes. The following are semi-autobiographical anecdotes blending fact and fiction.
Emily’s Mad, Not Crazy
Without proof to claim compensation from the air-conditioner handyman after a dubious “cleaning” job (see First Confrontation, Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady, Part 12), Emily feared she’d have no choice but to buy a new air-conditioner.
Maybe her landlord would get her one. Many other landlords would provide for their tenants. Later, she was shocked to learn that the now-broken-down air-conditioner, for which she had paid the landlord, was left by the previous tenant at no cost.
Despite recognizing the slim chances, Emily talked to her landlord and tried to get a new air-conditioner from him. But he wouldn’t agree.
Angry at her own naivety and frustrated by how many ice-cream scoops she needed to sell to pay for a new air-conditioner, Emily posted a note on the shop door. It read: “Shop closed due to no air-conditioning. Be cautious when you must buy a second-hand air-conditioner and when you need someone to clean it.”
The air-conditioner episode amounted to a terrible mistake. Emily wished she could have handled it better. Everything formed a part of the learning process, and she had learned a hard way.
Money, Money, Money
Maybe you’ve heard the song “Money, Money, Money” many times on TV as a theme for The Apprentice, a reality show hosted by billionaire Donald Trump. (Hopefully, he’s still a billionaire regardless of the financial tsunami.)
Although earning money isn’t Emily’s only motivation, it’s the ultimate goal for all kinds of enterprises. It’s also crucial to sustain a business. There’s a Chinese saying: “Maintaining a business is far more difficult than starting one.”
After so many trials and errors, Emily (for the first time) needed to face the reality of losing money. She even had to pay for a new air-conditioner. Originally, she’d felt proud of her achievement in starting the business in just seven days. Now she realized that her “baby” (the ice-cream shop) had been born “prematurely”.
Then the rent day arrived. Emily asked her real-estate agent if he’d help to convince the landlord to take the rent temporarily from the two-month deposit she had paid. The agent agreed to try as the landlord was his distant “uncle” in the same clan.
Next day, the landlord arrived in Emily’s shop and grabbed a perfect chance for revenge. Right in front of the customers, he shouted: “Shue Go Mui (young ice-cream maid), when will you pay me this month’s rent?”
The Pledge
After each work-day, Emily wrote down the proceeds in her “Sales Record Book”. In another book, kept securely locked in a drawer, she secretly listed the sums she owed to friends who had helped to finance the shop:
May: $$$
Yvonne: $$$
Yip: $$$
Cheung: $$$
Hung: $$$
Chan: $$$
FiFi: $$$
Bell: $$$
Kwong: $$$
This was the money Emily had borrowed to start and sustain the business. She used to think that only wealthy people had the power or credit to borrow. Actually, the more money you can borrow, the wealthier you are.
But in real life, ordinary people don’t regard borrowing money as prestigious. For a self-sufficient person like Emily, who had started to work part-time at age 13, borrowing proved extra difficult.
To Emily’s surprise, none of her friends asked a single question about how the money would be spent or when she could repay it. They just gave it to Emily. A child of some friends even “donated” from his lai-see, the red-envelope money that adults give to children at the Chinese New Year.
Always after locking the second book in the drawer, Emily quietly vowed: “I won’t let down my friends. They loaned me money because they completely trust me. My shop will survive, no matter what. I’ll definitely earn back the money for them!”
What Emily didn’t know was that one local friend would learn the secret of the borrowed money and betray it by telling “a lady” who’d do her best to damage Emily. Then suddenly the economy would dive thanks to a previously unknown disease hitting Hong Kong.
Coming soon:
Anything Goes on This Tropical Isle
(more Memoirs of an Ice-Cream Lady)
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